A Porcelain Lullaby [Chapter One]

On waves as rough as reef rocks;

floating in the lovely sea,

A mirror for the moonlight

is all I hope to be.

As ancient decks

pass stained red shores,

my gaping eyes have seen;

souls of man and monster

reign a single dream.

Always the water’s comfort,

that foreboding silver gleam.

As I am cast anew into the deep,

that I may rise again

in another devil’s sleep.

Don’t weep for us

on stormy nights:

two lovers lost at sea.

Once more I am

unto the light,

until I am kept from me.

- Magniwald (2013)

ONE

Sixteen-year-old Adam had been dreaming of the ocean most nights for the past few months. He did not know why or how these dreams had come about, but thoughts of them had been plaguing him during any spare moment he had. Obsession is rarely a good thing, but, Adam’s dreams were getting more and more threatening as the nights passed by: whilst this gave him cause to worry, he had gained a newfound fascination for the sea, and, since Adam had a lot of spare time -being alone, friendless, as he was: such an obsession was, at the very least, something to keep him occupied. The word friendless suggests that Adam was without friends, but that wasn’t quite true. Adam did have one friend, though she was not an ordinary one.
Adam’s only companion sat with him, sharing his voice of concern over his increasingly ominous and menacing dreams of the great dark sea. They were perched like two gulls high upon a cliff that overlooked a small reef, legs hanging freely. The gushing waters were rougher still amongst the reef rocks and this was where Adam found his gaze lying as he discussed his troubles with the delightful and innocent May.
“I think there are monsters in the deepest parts of the ocean,” May spoke with an unsuitably soft-tone as she always did, “I don’t know what they look like, I just think they’re there,” she added.
“What?” Adam asked, his fixture upon the reef below broken.
“That’s what you were thinking about, “what’s out there, in the water”, and I ju-”
“May, don’t do that,” Adam interrupted.
“Do what?”
“Don’t read my mind.”
“But... I am your mind,” May giggled, and made a magical dust sprinkling gesture right in front of Adam’s face with her small hands.
“I’d just - to be honest, I’d prefer it if you waited for me to say something before you started talking about it,” Adam replied as he brushed May’s hands out of the way of his face.
“Why? You never say any of the interesting stuff anyway, plus, it’s always worded better in your head.”
“It just works better like that. Trust me.” Adam began to lose himself again in the sounds and jumping waters of the reef.
“Adam, I’ve come to terms with me not being real. Maybe you should too?” May’s voice was lost upon the now emotionally distanced Adam.
“Shut up,” came Adam’s mumbled reply, as he realised what May had said.
“C’mon, I’m like your imaginary friend; I am your imaginary friend.” May put her hand on Adam and smiled at him as he turned to look at her.
“You think it’s good, you being imaginary?” Adam didn’t return her smile, or look at her directly in the eye for that matter.
“It means you can tell me anything,” May said, as she lay back with her lower legs still hanging over the cliff edge.
Adam waited for a while before speaking: “Because you already know everything.”
May didn’t give a reply, but she continued smiling and the two sat there in silence and darkness for a little while longer before May suggested it was time for them to head back home.

Adam was not accompanied by May on his way. She would usually only ever appear when he was in a thoughtful mood, and the path through the dimly-lit sleeping village was so familiar that it was more a chore than a ponderous stroll. Adam’s home lay half-a-mile from the bulk of the village in a smaller cluster of houses, most of which were uninhabited. Adam’s house was a modest size: one of the biggest in the small fishing village where he had lived for his entire life so far. Adam’s parents had also lived there their whole lives, but the house had only a few years ago been passed on to them by Adam’s mother’s sister after her death, along with substantial wealth, and so, money hadn’t been an issue since. This allowed Adam’s parents to live very relaxed lifestyles, painting various artworks and travelling to the nearest market-town every now and then to try to sell them for more than their worth. Adam’s parents both loved painting hugely, they had painted even before Adam was born; although they had had jobs on the side before Adam’s mother’s sister died. The only thing they loved more than painting was each other: poor Adam came third in that list, but they still loved him, and Adam was grateful for that.

Adam’s eyes were heavy by the time he stumbled past the horse-chestnut tree a little way from his house, down the final stretch of path and into his porch; he took off his parka and his black knit hat and looked at the clock on the wall: it had gone two in the morning but he could hear the television. He made his way into the living room where he found both his mother and father sleeping on the sofa, the television screen still flickering with some late night telemarketing. Adam made his way over to the TV and turned it off. He then stumbled upstairs to his room, and without much extra thought, he fell limply onto his bed and quickly accepted the warm grace of sleep.

Adam’s dreams that night were vivid and threatening. He stood on a small rock amidst grey thrashing waters, and around him there was no sign of any land feature. He often found himself in this place, it was usually either here, an unfamiliar rock out in the middle of the sea, or back at home on the cliff-edge. The sea had been growing ever so much wilder since his dreams had begun, and it seemed as though the rock was smaller and smaller each time he returned. In fact, Adam felt as though the waters were rising, perhaps trying to reach him, growing angrier and ever more vicious as they came closer to consuming him. Adam did not believe himself to be aquaphobic - in fact he considered water to be elementally beautiful, and always had done, living near the sea as he did. But Adam was certainly starting to see the darker shades of water as his dreams over the past few nights had revealed it to be an unguided, all-powerful, destructive force. Only five nights ago, whilst still dreaming, he had witnessed a boat be overturned and engulfed by the ravenous waves. Adam was a very clever young man, he knew that he should not let his dreams affect him too much, but even he could not resist the urge to go and watch the local fishermen set off from the pier each day in the hours of the morning before school. In fact it had become a part of his weekday routine: pier, then school, then cliff, then home.

Adam’s dream continued: he watched the exaggeratedly large sun set over the water. It appeared as though the ocean was eating the giant fireball, slowly but surely consuming it, just as he had thought it should like to do with him. The sky was red and orange as though it was angry at the conflict between the two, but Adam woke before the water had finished its meal: before the crest of the sun had dipped below the glistening waters of the horizon.

It was eight o’clock when Adam crept out from his bedroom, dressed in the same clothes as he had worn last night: a pair of navy jeans and laceless weathered black canvas shoes along with a plain-grey t-shirt. It was Saturday - no school, so he went straight downstairs and grabbed an apple from the kitchen, put his parka and hat on, and left the house headed for the pier. His parents’ car was not in the driveway, they had likely gone to the Saturday marketin the next town. Adam knew it would be pointless to check and see if they had left a note: he had grown accustomed to their random periods of absence and his mother and father knew this and trusted him not to break anything.

Adam didn’t particularly like walking through the village centre in daylight; there were usually too many elders with no close relatives to lay their problems on. Too many times, Adam had been making his way somewhere, taking a shortcut through the high street when an old person who Adam barely recognised and could only assume was a friend of his parents would talk to him about school and the weather and it would usually end up in a hollow job-offering, wherein Adam would mow the lawn or clear out the attic for a little bit of money but more so for the ‘work experience’ it gave him. Adam didn’t know what kind of work involved cutting elders’ lawns or sorting through antiques and rubbish in a grim old attic, but he was fairly certain he wouldn’t be specialising in that particular field any time in the foreseeable future, so he avoided walking directly through the village-centre and instead circled around the outskirts, eating his apple along the way, before arriving at the pier. There were no boats going out by the time he got there, it was likely that they’d already gone since he was a little later than he’d been through the past week. In the absence of any angry and disgruntled looking fishermen, he was able to sit cross-legged on the very edge of the pier. Before he knew it, May was sitting next to him, herself looking out to sea.
Adam wasn’t exactly sure where May had come from: she was the image of a small, pretty, but slightly pudgy girl, and she wore a long and frilly cyan dress. Adam remembered seeing an advertisement on television for some sweets a few years ago, and he remembered a girl who fit that description holding a packet, but he couldn’t recall the girls face and so was unsure as to whether she was May’s origin. It didn’t really matter to Adam anyway; regardless of what May was and where she had come from, Adam was just glad to have a friend for once, even if she were imaginary and sometimes annoying.
“Look!” May screeched happily. Out at sea was a large cruise ship, the kind that would more likely be seen in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. They sometimes docked at one of the ports a little way down the coast from Adam’s village. Adam had no idea why; there was nothing to see for fifty-miles in any direction. But, they docked, and some of the tourists would even make it as far as Adam’s village before presumably finding out how dull and boring it all was and leaving. Adam found that one of life’s few amusements was trying to pick out the tourists from the indigenous population, but it was usually easy: they were the ones who looked happiest, and most of them were tanned.
“Why do you think the cruise-liners come here?” Adam asked May.
“The ship to the port, or the tourists to this place?” May was careful not to make any assumptions given Adam’s previous comment on not reading his mind.
“Ship to port.”
“I don’t know, maybe they need to refuel?”
“I doubt it. I mean, those things are massive. They probably only refuel like once or twice each trip.”
May smiled - almost politely, and then nodded in agreement, “probably.”
“I don’t know then,” May concluded.
“Me neither.”
“Who are you talkin’ to, boy?” A man shouted from the end of the pier, causing both Adam and May to jump.
Adam didn’t reply.
“Go on, tell him you’re talking to your imaginary friend May,” May giggled, “ooh, no! Tell him I’m a ghost.”
Adam ignored May and stood up. He began walking back up the pier until he came to a halt in front of the man. He was large, his shoulders were twice the width of Adam’s, and he wore a large dull green knee-length anorak with the hood up. Adam kept his gaze to the floor, he couldn’t manage to think of a quick explanation, and so he simply began to walk again, away from the pier.
“Hold up, son,” the man called out to Adam from behind him.
Adam stopped, but didn’t turn. He didn’t know what the man wanted, but at the same time he didn’t want to be rude.
“Come here.”
Adam turned hesitantly and placed himself just out of arms-reach of the man.
“You fancy a job?” the man asked, “you can work on one of my boats if you fancy.”
Adam felt the man’s eyes piercing his own, and he made eye-contact for a moment, then broke, then met the man’s eyes again. They were a seaman’s eyes, grey, surrounded by leathered skin that had taken a buffeting from strong winds.
“Do you go to school?” the old seaman asked.
Adam hesitated, and then nodded.
“How old are you?”
“Six-sixteen,” Adam stammered.
“Well, you can work weekends, six ‘til six, sound good?”
Adam was hesitant.
“He looks scary,” May said, appearing at Adam’s side, “but he seems nice.”
Adam couldn’t disagree, as there was a warm tone in the man’s gruff voice.
“Go on, you’ve always wanted to try fishing,” May urged.
“Yes,” Adam found himself saying as May faded away with a smile on her face.
“Yes?” the man seemed, surprise, and then he chuckled slightly.
“Well alright then, here, tomorrow, six. We’ll get you sorted.”
“Okay,” Adam said, as he managed a smile, “thanks.”
The man left Adam standing there as he walked away towards the pier, whistling a slow tune. With nothing else to be done, Adam walked slowly back to his house.

The rest of the day passed quickly, Adam just sat around the house. May would pop in and out of existence as Adam’s mind wandered, each time she would bring thoughts with her that were a little too much for Adam on that particular day: asking why he was so alone; why he was often sad; what he intended to do with his life. Adam just wanted to watch television. Adam was not in control of May, in fact she often surprised him. When she had first started appearing, Adam had done his research, and he learned of a theory that suggested that humans only use about ten-percent of their brains at any one time, this made sense: May was hiding in the mist and fog of the other ninety-percent. However, Adam soon found this theory to likely be false after reading some more reputable material at the library in the next town which stated that people use the entire mind, albeit not usually all at once. Instead Adam chose to believe that May was a part of his subconscious mind, which he found was supposedly most active when dreaming. This would explain why her appearance more or less coincided with his first few recurrent dreams of the ocean.

Adam’s parents arrived home in the late evening. The car pulled up on the driveway, the headlights making strange patterns on the wall behind the television with the broken venetian blinds that covered the front living room window. Adam turned to look outside, he saw his father get out of the car, and then his mother, who ran around and hugged the man, lifting her legs off of the floor and hanging off of him for a split second.
“Careful love!” Adam heard his father say, as he nearly stumbled over.
“Sorry, sorry! his mother replied, almost laughing.
Adam watched as his father took two large paintings out from the back of the car, one under each arm, and followed Adam’s mother into the house.
“Just the two left?” Adam said as they entered, he was still sat on the sofa, but the porch doorway was just through the living room doorway, so he didn’t have to raise his voice. They usually took around five or six paintings, and one piece sold for a fair amount, so only two left was pretty good going.
“Yep. Hi sweetie,” replied Adam’s mother, coming close to him and ruffling his dark shaggy hair.
Adam’s mother was quite a tall lady, with her hair dyed dark-red. She had bright green eyes like Adam.
“Alright son!” Adam’s father greeted Adam, staggering through the doorway then leaning the two paintings on the wall. Adam’s father was also quite tall, though a little bit shorter than Adam’s mother; he wore large-framed glasses and was a little overweight. He was very proud of having maintained a full-head of thick black hair through his fifty years, and he wore it nearly as long as his wife’s.
“I got a job,” Adam said a few minutes later, when they were all sat in the living room together, his mother watching the television and his father reading the newspaper.
“Oh, mowing Mrs. Grenson’s lawn again are we?” Adam’s mother asked and looked at his father who did not return her gaze.
“No, I mean a proper weekend job: I’m going to work on the fishing boats.”
“Oh – well, you be careful, Adam,” she turned to look at him, and with just a hint of seriousness, said “we don’t want you falling in.”
Adam’s father chuckled to himself and said, without looking up from his newspaper, “he’ll be in the first time he goes out, just you watch.”
Adam grinned a little, knowing his father was joking.
“I’m going upstairs. I start tomorrow at six.”
“Good night sailor,” his father quipped, and his mother smiled at him.
Adam shook his head, still with a slight grin, and left the room. Before going upstairs, he glimpsed the two paintings his father had leant upon the wall through the corner of his eye, causing him to do a double take. The first painting was of a young oriental woman, wearing a straw hat in what looked like an apple orchard, she was looking directly at the viewer. But it was not the first painting that intrigued Adam so much, for the second painting was of two people seen from behind, a boy and a girl holdings hands as they walked on a red beach. Red sand beaches were common around where Adam lived, so that wasn’t anything new: the thing that had caught Adam’s attention was that the boy was wearing what looked like Adam’s parka and a dark green version of his hat. The painting was likely the best Adam had ever seen his parent’s produce: the way the water played with the light to the right of the two running figures was stunning, and the water itself looked so real. The girl in the picture wore a knee-length purple dress and no shoes, from behind she looked very beautiful, flawless in fact. Adam could tell that she was happy: her face was not visible but her head was turned just enough to see her left cheek, and it looked as though she was smiling. Despite all this, Adam couldn’t help but feel sad whilst looking at the painting, though he couldn’t place exactly why. Perhaps it was the way the two characters seemed to be leaving, or perhaps it was because Adam wished he could switch places with the boy in the picture; either way, Adam had his first day on the boats tomorrow, and so he made his way to bed. May appeared at his bedside as he was about to close his eyes.
“Do you want to talk about the painting?” she asked, sweetly.
“No,” Adam sighed.
“Oh – then, good night!” she stood and did a twirl before fading into nothingness.

After slowly succumbing to sleep, Adam appeared upon the small rock he had found himself on last night. He sat down and proceeded to watch the waves go by. They were almost black, and were much calmer than the previous night. The sky was a brighter shade of black, and the stars were out, so Adam lay fully back upon the cold hard rock and looked up into the clear night sky. He watched as the stars crept across their black canvas; it felt as though the entire sky was spinning around Adam: He felt, for a while, as though he was at the centre of everything.